


Push

by thecarlysutra



Category: Salton Sea (2002)
Genre: Established Relationship, Growth, Hopeful Ending, Long-Term Relationship(s), Love, M/M, Music, Musical Instruments, Musicians, Normal Life, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Canon, References to Drugs, Rehabilitation, Sad and Happy, Sobriety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21863728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: Jimmy and Danny five years later, and back at the beginning, and a few stops along the way.Thanks to C for the beta.
Relationships: Jimmy The Finn/Danny Parker
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Push

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Devilc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/gifts).



  
The first time Jimmy the Finn saw Danny Parker was through a cloud of smoke. Jimmy was laying back into Kujo’s saggy sofa, the cushions so formless he was almost flat on his back, and he was exhaling a great cloud of grey smoke when the door opened. A couple of girls came in, and between them, a guy Jimmy had never seen before. The haze separated them like those glass walls in the zoo that kept you from touching the snakes or the penguins, and Jimmy squinted until the smoke cleared, trying to get an angle on the guy. He’d seen the girls before, but the guy was new, and new things could be a problem. 

He was also beautiful.

Jimmy blinked. He sat up a little, which was hard because the couch was so soft and his blood was singing. He could hear it rushing past his ears, his own blood. This guy was still standing in the doorway, watching what was going on. He was kind of big, bigger than Jimmy—though lots of people could say that—and his face was serious, and he had tattoos going up both arms, so many tattoos that Jimmy flinched, thinking of the hours of pain. The guy’s eyes caught Jimmy for a second, but it was only a second, and then one of the girls was grabbing the guy’s hand and pulling him over to the corner for a hit.

After that, Danny was around pretty regularly, but it took Jimmy a while to get close to him. He thought of the zoo again, but tigers this time. They were so beautiful, but kind of scary in their beauty. It wasn’t just that they were strong, or that they had big teeth and claws. They were so beautiful that _that_ was scary, too, in a way Jimmy didn’t entirely understand. Danny was like that, too. To be honest, he didn’t entirely understand Danny, either, but he wanted to. He really wanted to.

***

It’s a big day, and Jimmy wakes up early, before the alarm, even. Kit’s still asleep, curled up on his side next to him, his hands balled into fists and held close against his chest. He doesn’t always sleep like that, but sometimes he has nightmares, and he draws into himself. Jimmy has nightmares sometimes, too, but usually when he does he wakes Kit up to tell him about them. Kit isn’t good at sharing some things about himself, but he’s told Jimmy he’s working on it.

Jimmy brushes a few errant strands of Kit’s hair out of his face, and kisses his forehead. Kit sighs, but he doesn’t wake up, so Jimmy leaves him to let him sleep, and gets in the shower.

Kit’s up by the time he’s out of the shower and dressed, scrambling eggs. He’s poured Jimmy his coffee and added the milk and sugar like he likes, and Jimmy grins as he takes a sip and tastes that it’s just right, because that Kit does these little things just for him is Jimmy’s favorite thing. He sits at the table drinking his coffee, watching Kit cook. It’s comforting, every inch of it. The fine form of him, the way his pajama pants hug his ass, the tattoos on his arms, so familiar Jimmy could draw them with his eyes closed. Back when Kit was becoming Kit, Jimmy asked him, didn’t he want to get rid of them? The tattoos. Kit had looked at him for a minute, mouth twisting, and then explained that he’d gotten them for a reason. They were permanent for a reason. It took Jimmy a while to understand. They’ve cost Kit a couple jobs; not everyone wants their kid’s music teacher to look like that. But Kit wouldn’t be Kit without them.

“So,” Kit says after a while of comfortable silence. “How do you feel this morning?”

“Good?” Jimmy says. “Nervous?” 

“That’s normal,” Kit says. He comes to the table with two plates of eggs, one for each of them. He sits across from Jimmy, studying him for a moment through the steam of his coffee. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, though. You’re going to do great.”

They’ve had this talk. Jimmy doesn’t one hundred percent believe him, even though Kit’s usually right about this kind of thing, but he nods. They eat in relative silence for a while, and then Kit collects their plates and loads the dishwasher. 

“Do you want me to drive you?” he asks.

“I can take the bus.”

“I know you can. Do you _want_ me to drive you?”

“You don’t have to.”

“Jimmy.”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Kit says. “I’m going to hop in the shower. We have plenty of time. Just get your things together, and I’ll be ready to go in fifteen.”

Jimmy takes a deep breath, releases it slowly. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You got it,” Kit says. “I got you.”

***

Jimmy was in the street, on his hands and knees, looking down into the storm drain. He heard footsteps behind him, and looked up to find Danny standing behind him.

“You okay?” Danny asked, and his brow furrowed further when he saw Jimmy’s face.

Jimmy wiped the wetness from his eyes. He needed to stop crying. He wasn’t a kid anymore.

“Yeah, I just … there’s a kitten down there. In the drain. It’s crying and crying, and I … I tried to get the guys to help me get him out, but they … sometimes it’s like they don’t even hear me.” Danny was still looking at him, an expression on his face that Jimmy couldn’t read. “It’s stupid. It’s just—”

“It’s not stupid,” Danny said softly. He walked up next to Jimmy, dropping his backpack on the ground and crouching next to him. He peered into the drain. “Do you know how long he’s been down there?”

“No. Hours.”

Danny frowned. “You’ve been out here for hours?”

“Yeah. I just … I couldn’t leave him. I keep trying to reach down and grab him, but he’s too fast.”

“Okay. I’ve got an idea. I’ll be right back.”

Danny picked up his backpack and began to walk down the street. Jimmy reached down into the drain again; this time he brushed the kitten’s fur with his fingertips. It was wet. The poor thing, left all alone with no one to care for it …

Danny was back in about ten minutes. He was carrying a plastic bag from the shop at the end of the street. He knelt beside Jimmy, reached into the bag and pulled out a can of potted meat. He pulled it open, then dumped the meat into the bottom of the bag.

“Scoot back so I can get in there,” Danny said, and Jimmy moved aside. Danny put the bag with the meat about a foot away from the kitten, and then he pulled his arm back. He crouched by the drain, watching the kitten for a moment, and then he looked at Jimmy. “Now we wait.”

They sat on the street watching the kitten nose around the opening of the bag. It started to get dark out. Jimmy shivered, and Danny untied his hoodie from around his waist and gave it to him.

Finally, the kitten walked into the bag and started eating the meat. Danny reached in quickly, grabbed both handles of the bag, and pulled it up out of the drain, the kitten mewling and twisting inside. Jimmy took off Danny’s hoodie, and Danny pulled the kitten out of the bag and held it while Jimmy wrapped Danny’s hoodie around it. The kitten meowed, but didn’t struggle.

“He probably needs to see a vet,” Danny said. “They’ll all be closed now, but we can go tomorrow, if you want.”

Jimmy wiped sewer gunk off the kitten’s face with the sleeve of Danny’s sweatshirt. “You think he got lost? Maybe he’s somebody’s, and they’re missing him.”

Danny frowned. “I don’t think so,” he said gently.

Jimmy nodded. He knew what that was like.

“Thanks, Danny,” he said.

Danny nodded, and they sat together by the storm drain with the kitten, the stars coming out above them.

***

Kit parks the car across the street, and looks at Jimmy. “You got everything? Schedule, notebooks, pens?”

Jimmy hugs his backpack. “Yeah.”

“Got your phone?”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna keep it off in class.”

“Good idea. Call me if you need anything, though, okay? You’re done at two thirty, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll be here to pick you up at two thirty.” He leans in and kisses him. “You’re going to do great, Jimmy. I’m proud of you.”

Jimmy frowns. “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

“You got into college, Jimmy. That’s huge all by itself.”

Jimmy looks at the stitching on his backpack. Kit bought it for him new the day he got his acceptance letter. “Hey, Kit … what if I’m not smart enough?”

“Hey,” Kit says. “Look at me.” Jimmy looks at him, and he continues. “You’re smart. You got your GED; you took the SATs. You’re just as prepared for college as anyone else here, okay? It’ll be hard work, but you know how to work hard. It can’t be harder than getting clean, right? Four years, Jimmy. You’ve been clean for four years. That’s the hardest thing, and you do it every day. English Comp isn’t harder than that. Nothing they can throw at you is.”

“Thanks, Kit.”

Kit leans in and kisses him again, longer this time. “I know you can do this. Have a great first day, okay? I’ll be here to pick you up as soon as you’re done, and we’ll go out to dinner tonight, okay, to celebrate.”

“Okay.”

Jimmy reaches for the door handle, but Kit rests his hand on his shoulder, and he stops.

“One more thing,” Kit says.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Jimmy grins. “I love you, too,” he says, and kisses him one last time, for luck. 

***

College, at least the first day, isn’t as scary as Jimmy imagined. He feels pretty great, actually, when Kit comes to pick him up. Maybe Kit’s right: Maybe he can do this. That night, Kit takes him to a new restaurant downtown that serves Spanish food on little plates. It’s pretty fancy in there, and the food is good, even if there’s not much of it. They’ve been eating for a while when a band starts setting up on the other side of the restaurant. It’s a drummer and a guy with a bass, and a guy with a trumpet. 

“I wish you’d play for me,” Jimmy says abruptly. 

Kit goes a little stiff. “We’ve talked about this.”

“Yeah, I know. And I get it, I just—man, I wish I could hear it, Kit. I don’t—I’ve never made anything beautiful, Kit, and it’s—I just wish I could hear it.”

***

After Danny got out of surgery, they let Jimmy sit in a chair next to his bed. He slept for a long time, and Jimmy was almost asleep, too, in the chair next to Danny’s bed, when he heard his voice. 

“Jimmy,” he said. His voice was small and gravelly. 

“Oh man, Danny, are you okay?”

“Because of you.”

“No, I just—hey, man. They said your name was Tom, Danny.”

“It used to be.”

“Do you want me to call you that? Should I call you Tom?”

Danny looked at him for a long time. He looked soft in a way he never had before. “Tom’s dead. Danny, too.”

“So who are you now?”

“I guess I’ve got to figure that out.” 

“Can I help?”

Not-Danny smiled. “Yeah, Jimmy. You can help.”

***

Jimmy’s doing well in school. It’s only a few weeks in, but he hasn’t messed up yet. He’s not really stressed about it, but he goes to a meeting, anyway, just in case he is and he doesn’t know about it. Kit goes with him, even though quitting wasn’t the same for him. He didn’t need rehab or meetings, and he doesn’t keep track of the last time he used. Jimmy has his four year chip in his pocket all the time, and when he gets nervous or frustrated, he’ll reach into his pocket and feel the shape of it, the ridges of the engraving. It helps. It really helps.

It’s a speaker meeting, and so Jimmy just sits and listens to the speaker talk. Every story is different, and every story is the same. The speaker was a heroin addict, and he’s describing waking up on the street one morning, beat up and missing his wallet and his shoes: his rock bottom. Sometimes Jimmy thinks he started out at rock bottom, but that wasn’t his fault. That’s just how life works for some people. He looks around the room, and then at Kit beside him; it took him a long time to even imagine being here. Clean, sheltered, improving, loved. All of it hits him all of a sudden, and he swallows thickly and grabs Kit’s hand. Kit doesn’t say anything, but he holds Jimmy’s hand, the pad of his thumb rubbing gently over Jimmy’s knuckles.

“You okay?” he asks when the meeting breaks.

“Yeah, man. Yeah, I’m … I’m great. Everything’s perfect.”

Kit smiles, and kisses his temple. He keeps hold of Jimmy’s hand as they walk out to the car.

***

They left town while Not-Danny was still recovering from surgery. Jimmy didn’t have much in the way of possessions, but almost everything Not-Danny had was gone. Now all he had was clothes the hospital gave him, his wedding ring, and Jimmy.

Not-Danny had enough money in the bank for bus tickets north, and first month’s rent for an apartment. It was old, but it was nicer than most places Jimmy’d ever stayed, and it was furnished. The bed was the important thing. Not-Danny slept for a long time, and when he wasn’t sleeping, too, Jimmy sat up on the edge of the bed and watched him.

He only had maybe one more day of crank on him. He didn’t have any money, though he knew if he asked Not-Danny, he would give him enough to stay well, if he had it. Not-Danny hadn’t used in days, but he had really nice painkillers from the hospital, so maybe that was holding him over. Jimmy waited until Not-Danny woke up, and then he told him about his problem.

Not-Danny looked at him for a long time. “What if we went to a hospital instead?”

“Are you—are you okay? Is it—is it hurting?”

“No,” Not-Danny said. “A hospital for you. To get well.”

“I just need, like, twenty bucks—”

“Not ’get well’ like that,” Not-Danny said. “Really well. Healthy. Clean.” Jimmy didn’t say anything. Not-Danny sighed, and he got up and came to sit by Jimmy, which took him a long time and hurt, it looked like. “I’ll give you the money if you want it, Jimmy. But I’ll help you get clean, too. I know you can do it. The choice is yours. Tell me what you want.”

Jimmy was surprised by the answer, but he said the first thing he thought of, and that was usually the truth: “You really think I can get clean?”

“I know you can.”

Not-Danny’s gaze was steady. Jimmy felt it holding him. He felt safe here.

“Okay,” he said.

***

Jimmy has a surprise: he’s gotten all As at midterms. He’s going to tell Kit, but after class he goes to a pawn shop and buys one more surprise.

“Hey!” Jimmy says when he walks in the door. Kit is at the piano with Lily Chang, and they both smile at him when he comes in. Lily is eight and just learning how to hold her hands on the keys and play scales, but Jimmy’s seen Kit with her, and he never gets frustrated. He’s always patient, no matter how many times he has to show her the same thing. 

Jimmy goes into the kitchen and sets up his surprise. He puts the case from the pawn shop on the kitchen table, and lays out his midterms on top. Then he has a snack and waits. 

Jimmy hears Kit showing Lily out, and then sees him come into the kitchen. He sees the test papers and his face lights up. 

“Jimmy, this is amazing. I’m so proud of you.”

He picks up the papers for a closer look, and after a moment, he sees the case. He frowns. 

“I got you something,” Jimmy says, coming to his feet. 

Kit just stares at the case, the papers still in his hands. Jimmy takes the papers away and sets them down on the table, and then he opens the case. 

It’s a trumpet, snug in the velvet lining of the case. Jimmy had the guy at the pawn shop shine it up, and the brass practically glows. Kit swallows. He looks at the trumpet. He reaches out, traces its graceful form with his fingers. Jimmy can hear him breathing faster than normal. 

“I know I’m pushing,” Jimmy says, “but you push me all the time, and it’s given me this amazing life. I didn’t know I could get clean. I didn’t know I could go to college. I didn’t know I could live in the suburbs with someone I love and who loves me. You didn’t do it for me; I had to work really hard for all of it. But I wouldn’t have thought of it without you. I wouldn’t have taken the first step without you pushing me. And I thought, maybe it’s time I push you back.”

Kit is quiet for a long time. He’s still looking at the trumpet, and Jimmy is wondering if he’s going to be mad, but finally he says, his voice soft, breaking a little, “She’s beautiful, Jimmy.”

He gently lifts the trumpet from its case. Inserts the mouthpiece, takes a moment to feel the weight of it, to adjust his grip, the position of his fingers. He raises the trumpet, brings the mouthpiece to his lips. 

The first note is long, low, mournful. It makes something in Jimmy’s chest hurt. He looks at Kit’s face. He doesn’t look sad. He looks intent, entranced; he looks right now the way he looks at Jimmy in the dark, in their bed, Jimmy in his arms. He breathes and moves his fingers, and the sound changes. The tone shifts, the music brightening, the tempo picking up. Jimmy feels his heart beat faster. The music doesn’t make him want to dance. It makes him want to fly. 

Kit closes his eyes, and he plays, and Jimmy listens. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. He knows it’s some old part of Kit waking up, but he hopes it’s something new, too. Something Kit can have and keep and love, the way he loves Jimmy. The way Jimmy loves this life. The way Jimmy loves him. 

They stand in the kitchen, the two of them, and the music goes on and on.  



End file.
